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If you are looking here to improve your webcam because you started to do remote work, don't. First try to improve lighting and audio. Any camera will look bad

If you are looking here to improve your webcam because you started to do remote work, don't. First try to improve lighting and audio. Any camera will look bad in bad lighting. It is always better to first improve your lighting before you invest in a new camera. Use high CRI lightbulbs and ensure even source color temperature in your room (ie. all lightbulbs should be emitting same color temperature). Audio is also very important. It is processed by different parts of brain and we don't put so much attention to it but the quality will influence the other person, subconsciously. Also, audio is how the information is being passed.

murkt 6y ago
It seems I needed to include a couple of shots - one is from my laptop webcam, and the other is from my phone. What "bad lighting" is changes very much based on the camera capabilities (lens, sensor, post-processing).
- masklinn 6y ago
  Yes and no. A better camera will be able to better compensate for bad lighting, but that doesn’t make the lighting good, and good lighting will improve the results of both. That’s why pro mage capturers (photogs and camera crews) spend a lot of time on getting the lighting as good as possible.
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    To be sure I don't tell it is worthless to buy a better camera. I just say you may want to improve your lighting first. Most webcams including the ones in laptop can provide decent quality image if there is ample amount of good light on the subject.
- llampx 6y ago
  There's even a severe difference in different models by the same manufacturer. Apple for example, puts much better webcams in their iPhones and iPads than in their Macbooks.
- diarrhea 6y ago
  I disagree somewhat. Coming from a photography background, we should distinguish quantity and quality. Quantity of light you can make up with higher gain (ISO) and higher available dynamic range also helps, as you mentioned. Quality of light is determined entirely outside the camera, and better gear does not help much if at all. For photography, the quality matters countless times more than quantity, usually. I would argue the same is true for video/webcam. This is what people don't get, and so hobbyists end up with $5k in gear, taking terrible photos. It's similar to when videographers don't put effort into their sound. This makes it a question of how and what to light, not how much. The latter would be a matter of adjusting gain in-camera, in Post-Processing, or simply turning existing lighting up. But the former part is the important, and difficult, one.
  - murkt 6y ago
    I agree that we should distinguish quantity and quality. If we don't have enough light in a scene, we need to raise ISO for a given camera and that can easily make scene look bad. For other camera with bigger and less noisier sensor, brighter lens there can be enough light and it can look very good. I can imagine that there are cases, where increasing amount of light will only improve picture for a cheap camera. If the light is plentiful and bad, cheap camera can produce abysmal results with parts of the image completely washed white in one part, and very dark in other parts. Good sensor with high dynamic range will produce much better results. Of course, improving the light will improve both results.
    - goldcd 6y ago
      I'd agree. I recently picked up a Logitech Brio (employer was paying) and quite happy with it. Main advantage to me is that it can produce a decent picture without me having to faff around with lighting. Of course if I did sort out lighting, it would be better - but (to me) I'd prefer to just swap out the camera than assemble more clutter around me.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Obviously if you directly compare good camera vs bad camera the good camera is going to win. But if you compare good camera in bad lighting and bad camera with good lighting the bad camera will almost always win unless it is really, really shitty. It is also usually much cheaper to improve lighting. If your face is a shadow while the rest of the room is brightly lit there is only so much that the camera can do, regardless of how much you invest in it.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
Those are great tips. I'll add a free one: just put your desk in front of a window and use that natural light
- lmilcin 6y ago
  I kinda agree and disagree at the same time. It takes a lot of work to beat natural light coming from your window. If you have restricted budget and can choose the time when you record, this is a very good option that I always recommend to people I talk to. On the other hand, when you do remote work you don't choose the time. Also, you will probably have other considerations for your desk placement. In the end it is much more important that you feel comfortable when working at your desk than to have good lighting in your webcam for your coworkers. So, if you like to sit front to the window then sure, go on. But if that would make you uncomfortable then I don't think it is worth it.
  - randycupertino 6y ago
    Also, coming from California and living on the Pacific, I have sort of a "too much light" problem. I've got sunrise on side of the house and sunset on the other and skylights in every room. I had an optimized setup in the living room but when I moved my office to the spare bedroom I am totally blasted out by the sunrise over the mountains and shadows come across my face as the sun moves. I'm experimenting with moving my desk but the trial and error is a pita.
- rutthenut 6y ago
  Sod's law means that the window is often behind the desk, making video pics a silhouette, and the light that does come from the monitor can give some ghastly hues to your skin tone!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mauvehaus 6y ago
  Hello from Vermont. How does that help for meetings after, say, 3:30 this time of the year?
mushishi 6y ago
+1 for improving audio quality. As a non-native English speaker, although I listen to daily podcasts without subs just fine, understanding an English speaking--possibly non-native, too!--person having a poor audio quality connection is a different story.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  People who do podcasts also take care in their pronunciation and that may be part of the effect. But yes, in general, I have the same problem. It doesn't matter how well I see you if I can't understand what you are saying.
cookieswumchorr 6y ago
exactly, audio is the most important. Nobody needs to see your unshaven sleepy quarantine face in 4K. But if they can't hear you, or there is a lot of noise, the meeting is ruined
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Actually, nobody will ever see your face in 4k because none of the platforms that are used for this will ever transmit video at that resolution. Most cap at 1080p with a very heavy compression. Also understand that real time compression is different from offline compression. To compress well it requires a huge amount of CPU. Real time compression results in higher bandwidth for the same image quality but more typically less quality for the same bandwidth.
  - vonseel 6y ago
    Never say never, I'm sure it won't be long before 4k's as commonplace as 1080p (with heavy compression).
yarcob 6y ago
Here's a trick how to get beautiful studio-like lighting for less than 50€: - buy two large sheets of white styrofoam (1m x 0.5m or bigger) - buy two cheap bright floodlights (the brighter the better) - get some mounting materials (eg. wood and screws, or cardboard and duct tape) - Place the two styrofoam plates right and left behind your laptop. - point the floodlights at the styrofoam, carefully positioning them so they are not in the picture Enjoy beautiful bright soft light. Optionally add a 3rd floodlight that shines on you from the side/from behind for highlights, and optionally another one to illuminate the background as needed. Now you'll look amazing even with the cheapest, crappiest webcam.
- MisterTea 6y ago
  Why not white bed sheets? I'm sure you could pick up a pack at a mega mart for a few quid. Easier to store, more environmentally friendly and less messy than styrofoam.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    Styrofoam is probably easier to mount/angle appropriately for the use and may reflect more light - but the material doesn’t matter a great deal. If you just want soft light, bounce it off anything you have on hand.
  - rpastuszak 6y ago
    Works fine until it falls of a makeshift stand half way through the meeting, but I guess that’s an issue with yours truly being a bit lazy/not talented at DYI
- bambax 6y ago
  Buying "pro" entry-level photographic lightning equipment is about the same cost and much simpler to set up.
  - marcosscriven 6y ago
    Can you recommend a good brand? I tried buying something from Amazon UK but contrary to reviews it turned out to be awful.
einpoklum 6y ago
--== CRI ==-- As a service to the readers who aren't familiar with the term: "The Color Rendering Index (CRI) measures the ability of a light source to bring out the true colors of an object. Without a high CRI light source, objects can appear faded, dull or inaccurate. "
xwdv 6y ago
It doesn’t matter, you can have the best lighting and audio ever and still look like a garbled piece of stuttering pixel shit on an end user’s machine because their connection can’t handle the streaming. Unless you’re a cam girl don’t even bother with a sophisticated webcam setup.
davio 6y ago
Another cheap tip: On your side monitor(s), set a couple of desktops with plain white, pink, and beige backgrounds. When you're on video, switch to the blank backgrounds to use as a soft fill light.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
This is the best advice. A high end mirror less camera will help a bit with its higher dynamic range, but simply optimizing your lighting will do wonders for any camera setup. All of the people showing beautiful mirrorless webcam shots have already optimized their lighting, so start there first. Also, don’t be the person with the overly-complicated webcam setup who ends up delaying every other meeting while they fiddle with cables, tripods, camera batteries, overheating cameras, cameras going into standby and so on. Having crisp images doesn’t matter if your always late or frazzled because you had to tend to your perfect webcam setup.
jonpurdy 6y ago
I wrote an article a few months back about this(1) and post when it's directly relevant. Main takeaways: audio is more important than video; get that correct first. Easiest thing is using a cheap headset microphone. Advanced noice cancellation algorithms with a great microphone placed far away can't complete with the physics of having a mic close to your month. Since publishing, I also found Webcam Settings, an app for Mac that lets you adjust specific settings on UVC webcams. I use it to correct the horrible auto white balance on my C920 (naturally looks way too blue). I just wish Apple would make a new version of their iSight camera. Something with a similar physical shape with a cropped DSLR sensor and a fast lens. Basically, same quality as a mirrorless with a fixed f/2 lens but in a single small package. 1 - https://jonpurdy.com/2020/03/how-to-improve-your-zoomskype-teleconferencing-game/ https://jonpurdy.com/2020/03/how-to-improve-your-zoomskype-t...
- rconti 6y ago
  I have a logitech 920, bought about a month before the pandemic, and it's great.. except sometimes it completely forgets how to focus.
  - wx196 6y ago
    Try to install Logitech G Hub, it should help
gsich 6y ago
Not just subconsciously. If people have a shitty microphone I have more work to do. I need to listen more carefully.
chapium 6y ago
Everyone will be happy if you up your audio quality. Cracks, pops and other distortions are in headphones are not fun. Noone really minds visual quality unless you are presenting something on the camera.

murkt 6y ago

It seems I needed to include a couple of shots - one is from my laptop webcam, and the other is from my phone. What "bad lighting" is changes very much based on the camera capabilities (lens, sensor, post-processing).

masklinn 6y ago
Yes and no. A better camera will be able to better compensate for bad lighting, but that doesn’t make the lighting good, and good lighting will improve the results of both. That’s why pro mage capturers (photogs and camera crews) spend a lot of time on getting the lighting as good as possible.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  To be sure I don't tell it is worthless to buy a better camera. I just say you may want to improve your lighting first. Most webcams including the ones in laptop can provide decent quality image if there is ample amount of good light on the subject.
llampx 6y ago
There's even a severe difference in different models by the same manufacturer. Apple for example, puts much better webcams in their iPhones and iPads than in their Macbooks.
diarrhea 6y ago
I disagree somewhat. Coming from a photography background, we should distinguish quantity and quality. Quantity of light you can make up with higher gain (ISO) and higher available dynamic range also helps, as you mentioned. Quality of light is determined entirely outside the camera, and better gear does not help much if at all. For photography, the quality matters countless times more than quantity, usually. I would argue the same is true for video/webcam. This is what people don't get, and so hobbyists end up with $5k in gear, taking terrible photos. It's similar to when videographers don't put effort into their sound. This makes it a question of how and what to light, not how much. The latter would be a matter of adjusting gain in-camera, in Post-Processing, or simply turning existing lighting up. But the former part is the important, and difficult, one.
- murkt 6y ago
  I agree that we should distinguish quantity and quality. If we don't have enough light in a scene, we need to raise ISO for a given camera and that can easily make scene look bad. For other camera with bigger and less noisier sensor, brighter lens there can be enough light and it can look very good. I can imagine that there are cases, where increasing amount of light will only improve picture for a cheap camera. If the light is plentiful and bad, cheap camera can produce abysmal results with parts of the image completely washed white in one part, and very dark in other parts. Good sensor with high dynamic range will produce much better results. Of course, improving the light will improve both results.
  - goldcd 6y ago
    I'd agree. I recently picked up a Logitech Brio (employer was paying) and quite happy with it. Main advantage to me is that it can produce a decent picture without me having to faff around with lighting. Of course if I did sort out lighting, it would be better - but (to me) I'd prefer to just swap out the camera than assemble more clutter around me.
lmilcin 6y ago
Obviously if you directly compare good camera vs bad camera the good camera is going to win. But if you compare good camera in bad lighting and bad camera with good lighting the bad camera will almost always win unless it is really, really shitty. It is also usually much cheaper to improve lighting. If your face is a shadow while the rest of the room is brightly lit there is only so much that the camera can do, regardless of how much you invest in it.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

Those are great tips. I'll add a free one: just put your desk in front of a window and use that natural light

lmilcin 6y ago
I kinda agree and disagree at the same time. It takes a lot of work to beat natural light coming from your window. If you have restricted budget and can choose the time when you record, this is a very good option that I always recommend to people I talk to. On the other hand, when you do remote work you don't choose the time. Also, you will probably have other considerations for your desk placement. In the end it is much more important that you feel comfortable when working at your desk than to have good lighting in your webcam for your coworkers. So, if you like to sit front to the window then sure, go on. But if that would make you uncomfortable then I don't think it is worth it.
- randycupertino 6y ago
  Also, coming from California and living on the Pacific, I have sort of a "too much light" problem. I've got sunrise on side of the house and sunset on the other and skylights in every room. I had an optimized setup in the living room but when I moved my office to the spare bedroom I am totally blasted out by the sunrise over the mountains and shadows come across my face as the sun moves. I'm experimenting with moving my desk but the trial and error is a pita.
rutthenut 6y ago
Sod's law means that the window is often behind the desk, making video pics a silhouette, and the light that does come from the monitor can give some ghastly hues to your skin tone!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mauvehaus 6y ago
Hello from Vermont. How does that help for meetings after, say, 3:30 this time of the year?

mushishi 6y ago

+1 for improving audio quality. As a non-native English speaker, although I listen to daily podcasts without subs just fine, understanding an English speaking--possibly non-native, too!--person having a poor audio quality connection is a different story.

lmilcin 6y ago
People who do podcasts also take care in their pronunciation and that may be part of the effect. But yes, in general, I have the same problem. It doesn't matter how well I see you if I can't understand what you are saying.

cookieswumchorr 6y ago

exactly, audio is the most important. Nobody needs to see your unshaven sleepy quarantine face in 4K. But if they can't hear you, or there is a lot of noise, the meeting is ruined

lmilcin 6y ago
Actually, nobody will ever see your face in 4k because none of the platforms that are used for this will ever transmit video at that resolution. Most cap at 1080p with a very heavy compression. Also understand that real time compression is different from offline compression. To compress well it requires a huge amount of CPU. Real time compression results in higher bandwidth for the same image quality but more typically less quality for the same bandwidth.
- vonseel 6y ago
  Never say never, I'm sure it won't be long before 4k's as commonplace as 1080p (with heavy compression).

yarcob 6y ago

Here's a trick how to get beautiful studio-like lighting for less than 50€: - buy two large sheets of white styrofoam (1m x 0.5m or bigger) - buy two cheap bright floodlights (the brighter the better) - get some mounting materials (eg. wood and screws, or cardboard and duct tape) - Place the two styrofoam plates right and left behind your laptop. - point the floodlights at the styrofoam, carefully positioning them so they are not in the picture Enjoy beautiful bright soft light. Optionally add a 3rd floodlight that shines on you from the side/from behind for highlights, and optionally another one to illuminate the background as needed. Now you'll look amazing even with the cheapest, crappiest webcam.

MisterTea 6y ago
Why not white bed sheets? I'm sure you could pick up a pack at a mega mart for a few quid. Easier to store, more environmentally friendly and less messy than styrofoam.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Styrofoam is probably easier to mount/angle appropriately for the use and may reflect more light - but the material doesn’t matter a great deal. If you just want soft light, bounce it off anything you have on hand.
- rpastuszak 6y ago
  Works fine until it falls of a makeshift stand half way through the meeting, but I guess that’s an issue with yours truly being a bit lazy/not talented at DYI
bambax 6y ago
Buying "pro" entry-level photographic lightning equipment is about the same cost and much simpler to set up.
- marcosscriven 6y ago
  Can you recommend a good brand? I tried buying something from Amazon UK but contrary to reviews it turned out to be awful.

einpoklum 6y ago

--== CRI ==-- As a service to the readers who aren't familiar with the term: "The Color Rendering Index (CRI) measures the ability of a light source to bring out the true colors of an object. Without a high CRI light source, objects can appear faded, dull or inaccurate. "

xwdv 6y ago

It doesn’t matter, you can have the best lighting and audio ever and still look like a garbled piece of stuttering pixel shit on an end user’s machine because their connection can’t handle the streaming. Unless you’re a cam girl don’t even bother with a sophisticated webcam setup.

davio 6y ago

Another cheap tip: On your side monitor(s), set a couple of desktops with plain white, pink, and beige backgrounds. When you're on video, switch to the blank backgrounds to use as a soft fill light.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

This is the best advice. A high end mirror less camera will help a bit with its higher dynamic range, but simply optimizing your lighting will do wonders for any camera setup. All of the people showing beautiful mirrorless webcam shots have already optimized their lighting, so start there first. Also, don’t be the person with the overly-complicated webcam setup who ends up delaying every other meeting while they fiddle with cables, tripods, camera batteries, overheating cameras, cameras going into standby and so on. Having crisp images doesn’t matter if your always late or frazzled because you had to tend to your perfect webcam setup.

jonpurdy 6y ago

I wrote an article a few months back about this(1) and post when it's directly relevant. Main takeaways: audio is more important than video; get that correct first. Easiest thing is using a cheap headset microphone. Advanced noice cancellation algorithms with a great microphone placed far away can't complete with the physics of having a mic close to your month. Since publishing, I also found Webcam Settings, an app for Mac that lets you adjust specific settings on UVC webcams. I use it to correct the horrible auto white balance on my C920 (naturally looks way too blue). I just wish Apple would make a new version of their iSight camera. Something with a similar physical shape with a cropped DSLR sensor and a fast lens. Basically, same quality as a mirrorless with a fixed f/2 lens but in a single small package. 1 - https://jonpurdy.com/2020/03/how-to-improve-your-zoomskype-teleconferencing-game/ https://jonpurdy.com/2020/03/how-to-improve-your-zoomskype-t...

rconti 6y ago
I have a logitech 920, bought about a month before the pandemic, and it's great.. except sometimes it completely forgets how to focus.
- wx196 6y ago
  Try to install Logitech G Hub, it should help

gsich 6y ago

Not just subconsciously. If people have a shitty microphone I have more work to do. I need to listen more carefully.

chapium 6y ago

Everyone will be happy if you up your audio quality. Cracks, pops and other distortions are in headphones are not fun. Noone really minds visual quality unless you are presenting something on the camera.